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August 2021
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Our Local and Global Neighbours

At Ide Hill CE School, our vision "Do Everything in Love" drives our decisions and actions. It encourages us to look outwards to our local and global neighbours and to offer the support that we are able to. As a Silver Rights Respecting School we stand up for our children's rights and support children in their quest for courageous advocacy and change. 

The Rojo Rojo orphanage in Kenya was built in 2011 as part of a collaboration between aids awareness campaigner Joseph Ndaa, and husband and wife team Sarah and Richard Acland, with support from Mrs Liz Denbeigh, our previous Chair of Governors. Since this time, Ide Hill School and the Community shop have donated to the orphanage each year enabling them to start a working farm, to build an irrigation system and to provide the essentials of education, food and health care to the 14 children currently living at the  orphange . 

 

Our school vision, “Do everything in Love” inspires us to show love, respect and responsibility to all within our community. Our global neighbours in Kenya are an extension of our community, therefore we are always keen to support the orphanage by raising as much money as possible and by taking action to promote children’s universal right to education, right to health care and right to food and drink.

 

100 Challenge, raising over £1000 for Rojo Rojo, 

Throughout the pandemic the nation was inspired by Sir Captain Tom Moore’s outlook on life and ‘can do’ attitude. At school, we harnessed this positive power and challenged children to show their positive attitude and growth mindset in all areas of their development. Friday 30th April 2021 would have been Captain Sir Tom Moore’s 101st birthday and the one-year anniversary of the celebrations following the conclusion of his famous 100 laps of his garden that raised an incredible £38.9 million for the NHS.

 The Target: Each month, it costs the orphanage £25 to provide school fees, £5 to provide healthcare and £30 to provide food for just one child. How many children can we fund through this challenge?

The challenge was simple: Sir Captain Tom Moore completed 100 laps of his garden. Can you take on the following challenges in your PE lesson?

100 laps of the field as a class  / speed bounces / throw, clap, catches / circles around a cone /  (individually or with a friend for younger children) 100 tuck jumps (individually or with a friend for younger children)

 

 

Harvest
Our annual harvest celebration saw us collecting some wonderful donations from our local community. As ever, these have been donated to the Loaves and Fishes Foodbank at St. John the Baptist church where the donations will be used to help the most vulnerable. 

Local and global support

At Ide Hill CE school our vision is rooted in the parable of the Good Samaritan. This parable reminds us of all the different ways in which we can demonstrate love through our kindness so that we live  our vision everyday. Here are just some of the ways that we shown love to our local and global neighbours. 

 

Remembrance

This year, the school celebrated “Love through Remembrance” with many children and families contributing their memories and prayers to our display on the school gates.

Christmas Tree Festival. 

In December 2022, the school took part in the Christmas Tree Festival organised by The Friends of Ide Hill. The school’s tree was decorated with ornaments made by the children based on the themes from the song “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. 

The auctioning of the trees raised £1995 and with the evening Concert the Friends of Ide Hill raised £3595. All proceeds will go towards improving the church as a community asset. 

After the auction, we were delighted to discover that David and Jo Paton had bought the Ide Hill School tree and then returned it to the school for the children. 

World Book Day
We have had a wonderful time celebrating World book day this year with a celebration of reading, an opportunity to swap books in school and discuss our favourite authors or stories. We are keen to provide children with an opportunity to read outside of the classroom and were delighted that through our activities we have raised enough to buy two reading sheds, which will be positioned on the playgrounds. 
 
Rojo Rojo Sale
In May 2023 Mrs Fletcher and Mrs Denbeigh came into school to talk to the children about the Rojo Rojo orphanage and share some news from the orphanage including how our fundraising has helped the children over the years. Mrs Fletcher then held a sale after school, which raised a further £300. 
Christmas fundraising for St Mary's church
As a church school we believe that it is incredibly important that we support our local church. We are very lucky to have a church so close to the school and to be able to use St Mary’s for free on a regular basis, especially as costs continue to spiral. In December we wanted to find an opportunity to give back to our community and asked families and visitors for a voluntary donation as we came together at St Mary’s for our fantastic nativity performances. Thanks to your support we raised £145, which we have asked to be put towards the cost of heating the church.
 
In response to this news, I had several emails of thanks from members of the St Mary’s Sundridge with Ide Hill and Toys Hill PCC who were delighted with this very welcome but unexpected news. They have all asked that their thanks be extended to our school community. T
Pentecostal Pause
 
The children had the chance to explore Pentecost (the church’s birthday) through a number of reflective activities at St Mary's church. They made friendship bracelets, found countries on a map, learnt how to say hello in a number of languages, helped build a Lego heart, watched their dreams and hopes blossom on a folded piece of paper in a pool and practiced the tricky art of waiting by watching sea creatures go up and down in a fish lamp. While doing all these activities the children were invited to reflect on the experiences of the disciples at Pentecost from waiting to travelling round the world to following Jesus’ examples and teaching. They also were invited to think about how they would have felt and relate all this to their own lives.